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Watercolor sketch for an early design idea based on simple "French Country" vernacular architecture, perhaps from middle to Northern France, but with a barrel tile roof more common in Southern France. The chimney might be more English with flat roof tiles covering the angled roof-like portions of the part that projects out from the wall. The shed dormer with the three windows is also more 20th century I would say, not exactly typical French. Simplicity and rustic appeal is key to this charming home. Leave your cares and pretensions behind as you sit in the shade and enjoy the wine and cheese produced just a short distance away!

Technical: Drawn on tan paper about 8 inches by 5 inches. Very limited watercolor palette with emphasis on grey and brown, keeps color harmony maximized and allows architecture to be the focus. Highlights and details in brown ink "Micron" pen. Borders around edge drawn/painted onto original sketch.

I am self-taught as an architectural designer, no formal education, in architecture at least. (My degree is in art history with some pre-engineering background.) This watercolor is just a study for leisure, but many things I post here are actual paid projects, both design and construction. Mostly, I design custom homes for a living!

Seriously? I love gentleman farms. You do this as a solo project? If you need help or consultation, let me know. I have two possibles in the hopper here locally myself, besides other stuff, both custom homes. Maybe we could trade CAD service/construction plans for consultation and associate design.

When you work up numbers like this, you figger out 500K for house, 100K for horse barn, 40K for premium fence, 60K for other small outbuildings, etc.?? Something like that? Then work backwards to design the stuff?

VG, nice project. I wouldn't mind a small greenhouse effect on my house somewhere, for winter plants like our lemon tree. I could see adding another "barn" (small shed?) some day too. Where is he? Towards Pickens county? Lots of good rural stuff there..

What a lovely little house, I can picture it in the countryside near a river or stream close to hills and fields with mountains in the distance. What a charming life that would be! What a beautiful idea you had great design.

I'd say you got the 'look' right, since I've seen a house almost exactly like that actually in France. It was sort of 'middle' french, Northern but with southern influences and renovated by an retired English couple.

I stayed at a "mas," an old French farmhouse converted into a country inn by an English couple. Yes, we had wine and cheese and fresh cherries and lots more sitting at a table next to the pool! Good times...

Opposite for me. We hiked all day in French villages and worked up a BIG appetite. I would LOSE weight if I visit France he he he... I liked a cheese I bought from the Alsatian region, much better than southern France's goat cheese...

I'm slowly editing and trying to get the "big picture" of what I can contribute, by going over old and new stuff, critiquing it, changing it, adding to it, putting explanations, etc. It's difficult to organize a massive pile of stuff into a coherent whole. There are books that don't exist. For example, how to design a luxury home. Where do you start? How do you do it? What are the methods? Very very complicated and esoteric knowledge base for a few specialists. We could use comprehensive encyclopedias of different sizes, shapes, and styles of homes. And yes, of course, the whole thing is "pretty" enough that people outside the field will buy and enjoy it. What do you think Mitch? You're good at seeing the big picture.